


a place for us

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dad!Dean, Episode: s04e17 It's a Terrible Life, Episode: s07e13 The Slice Girls, Episode: s07e23 Survival of the Fittest, Kid Fic, M/M, dad!Cas, teacher!Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1742948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean lifts a leg and shoves at Cas's hip with his bare foot. He wants to stop thinking about djinn dreams, and Zachariah, and why the hell his subconscious would stick him in a reality where he's a suspenders-wearing pansy and his monster kid is alive. "Would you just lie down?"</p><p>(Canon divergence from the last few minutes of "Survival of the Fittest," 7.23.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a place for us

One minute, Dean's watching Dick Roman explode, watching that huge flailing tongue and hoping that it doesn't slap him in the face. The next, there's a whistle blowing shrilly and he's blinking, ducking as a ball sails toward his face.

It hits the wall behind him with a loud smack and falls back onto the floor in front of his feet, rolling across it. The floor is shiny, wooden, and painted with lines. He looks up and sees a volleyball court filled with little girls.

"Dean."

He looks over. Cas is sitting in the chair next to him, looking as alarmed as Dean feels.

"Where are we?"

"Fuck if I know," Dean says, low, and the lady on his other side lets out a shocked little breath. He glances at her, past her, sees a whole row of adults sitting in plastic blue chairs set along the wall of what looks like a gymnasium. "Not Kansas, that's for sure. You getting anything on angel radio?"

The lady beside him huffs again. He grabs Cas's shoulder and sidles out of the gymnasium, ducking another wayward ball that sails past them to hit the wall again.

The propped-open double metal doors lead not out into a school, the way Dean had been expecting, but ….some sort of church lobby? Seriously? He looks around, taking in the Jesus statue by the outer doors, the various psalms and Sunday school posters affixed to the walls. "Cas?"

Cas is looking down at his hands. For the first time, Dean notices that he's not in his white hospital scrubs and trench coat but instead a pair of khaki slacks and a pale blue collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looks down at himself and sees that he's in a suit, which definitely wasn't the get-up he had on when they boned Roman.

"I…" Cas says.

"Shit," Dean says. "You're not going cocoa puffs on me again, are you?"

Cas looks up. Frowns at him. It's more of a glare-frown than a frown-frown, which is encouraging. "I…can't hear anything."

"What?"

"I can feel my Grace," Cas says, and he sounds frustrated. "But I can't--"

"Plug in? Connect to wi-fi?"

Cas frowns at him. "I don't know what those are."

"Didn't expect you to," Dean says, and claps him on the shoulder. Despite himself, relief is filtering through him--Roman exploded, they're not dead, and the last he saw of Sammy, he was okay. So maybe…maybe things are okay. Maybe this is just…epilogue stuff. Being transported somewhere weird as part of the killing-the-rat-king backlash. It wouldn't be the first time. After all, that time with him and Sammy at St. Mary's when Lucifer got out, they'd magically appeared on a plane. So maybe--maybe God has a hand in this, too.

He says as much to Cas. Cas doesn't look convinced. But he doesn't say anything, he just plucks at his sleeve. And Dean realizes that the last time he saw Cas dressed this normally was when he was. Well. Emmanuel.

The thought makes him turn away. It's probably stupid, but. Suppose that now that Roman's out of the way, Cas is going to want to go back to Daphne? To being just…Emmanuel?

He can't, Dean reassures himself. Just because Dick's bitten the dust doesn't mean there won't still be demons and angels hunting Cas's ass. He's best if he stays with them--

There's another shrill of the whistle from inside the gym. Dean starts, hand going automatically to the inside of his suit jacket where there _isn't_ a gun, then puts it instead to Cas's shoulder to steer him out of the way as kids and parents start to stream out of the double doors a few feet from them.

"Guess the game's over," he says, with a little smile for Cas because he looks so fucking down, and then something collides with his legs.

"Daddy!"

His heart stops. It positively fucking stops.

Then it magically teleports to his throat and starts thumping madly there, making it hard to breathe, or swallow. He looks down. One of the little girls from inside has her arms wrapped around his knees.

"Uh," he says. "Hi?"

She cranes her head back. She's blonde, and she's got Sam's eyes, and holy fuck. No way.

No. Way.

"You came!"

"Uh," he says again, as his heart stops thumping even faster. He looks at Cas, willing him to read the panic in his eyes, only to remember that Cas hasn't got a clue. Cas doesn't know that Dean had a weird half-Amazon baby with a chick who eats people.

He looks back down. Swallows. "Uh." Pats the side of the kid's head, gingerly. "Of course I did."

She grins wider. He half expects fangs to come pushing out down over her teeth, or maybe her eyes to turn yellow, but if anything, the smile just exposes the fact that one of her canines is missing, with a little nub of white where the new one's growing in.

She looks over, then, at Cas. "Hi, Mr. Novak!"

Cas looks stunned. Dean imagines he looks the same. "…hello."

"Did you see us? I got the ball twice!"

"I…did see," Cas manages. "It was. Very well done."

She beams. Goes back to cutting off the circulation in Dean's legs. "Are we going home?"

"Yeah," Dean says automatically, and looks around. There's tons of other parents and kids running around out here, and no one seems to think it's weird that he's got a kid hanging onto him. Like…like he belongs here, or something.

He's starting to get a bad feeling about this.

He clears his throat. "Emma."

He watches her closely as he says the name, half hopeful and half…not. But she looks up attentively, and there goes that. She's his Amazon kid all right. Although…apparently human?

She tugs on his trouser leg when he doesn't say anything more. "What, Daddy?"

"Nothing."

She tilts her head at him, then releases his legs to grab his hand, instead. Hers is small, and sweaty, and she starts to swing their hands back and forth as she heads toward the glass-paned double doors at the front of the church. Dean lets himself be led, grabbing a handful of Cas's sleeve to drag him after them.

Emma leads them out into a very neatly manicured parking lot, with bougainvillea bushes at the end of each row. She looks around for a minute in the falling dusk, then trots toward a small, champagne-colored Prius.

Dean eyes it.

"Can I unlock it?"

He looks down. Emma's looking at him hopefully. He blinks, fumbles in his pocket, patting first his suit jacket and then his pants pockets before finding keys in one. He hands them to her, and she grins, aims the small black beeper on one of the key rings at the car, and the headlights flash once, twice.

Emma pushes the keys back at him and climbs into the backseat.

Dean looks at the car. He's starting to have more bad feelings about this.

He sighs and makes to slide into the driver's seat. Pauses when he sees that Cas is making no move to go around to the passenger's side, just standing there, looking at the car. He seems puzzled.

"Cas?"

"Dean," Cas says slowly. Still studying the car. "I…think I am seeing things?"

Dean grimaces at this. He knew when Sam told him that Cas had said he thought he'd moved past seeing Lucifer that it was too good to be true. "What kind of things, Cas?"

"This is not a car you would drive," Cas says, half to himself.

Dean nearly snorts, at that. Nearly smiles. Because maybe Cas isn't seeing things, after all. "Nope. But here we are, so get in. Like a human, okay?" he adds, glancing belatedly at the kid in the backseat.

She's looking at him, forehead wrinkled. "Dad? Why is Mr. Novak coming home with us?"

His eyes flick to Cas, who has gotten deliberately into the passenger's seat. "Uhhhh…"

Cas squints back at him, completely unhelpful.

"A pipe exploded at Mr. Novak's house," he decides finally. "He needs somewhere to stay for a while until it gets fixed."

Emma looks dubious. "Why can't you stay with Claire?"

Dean's brows rise. How does his kid know about Jimmy Novak's? He looks at Cas again, and again, Cas looks just as perplexed.

"'Cause we have room in our house," Dean says firmly, because sometimes firm is the only way to get kids to stop asking questions. He remembers that from Sammy. "And I told him he could. Okay?"

"Okay," Emma says, after a moment.

Dean figures out where the light controls are on the Prius and turns in his seat again, braces his hand against the passenger seat to look out the back windshield as he reverses. The Prius's windshields are shaped  differently than he's used to, and he's distracted by his thumb brushing against the hair at the back of Cas's neck as he, too, turns to look out the back window. Cas's hair feels more bristle-like than Sam's, shorter and curlier. Dean tries not to notice the difference.

The car is one of those creepy-ass new ones that drives itself, the kind he's only ever seen in snippets on the news. He realizes this after a moment, when the digital speedometer display on the dash blinks and announces "NOW HEADING…HOME." Which makes him wonder, a) what year are they're supposed to be in, wherever the hell they are, and b) how the hell do you turn it off? Then he realizes that considering he has no clue where they're going, turning the auto-navigation off probably isn't a great idea.

He drums the heels of his hands on the (apparently completely superfluous) steering wheel uneasily as they pull to a stop at a red light. They're in a city; he can tell that much. He's not sure exactly what city, although something about the brownstone buildings makes him think Chicago.

Something occurs to him. He's…here. Sort of. Some version of his Amazon kid is here, except apparently human. Does that mean Lydia is also in the picture?

He glances in the rearview mirror at Emma, who's looking out her window.

"Hey, kid?" he says. She looks up. "Did anyone sign your agenda yet?"

She shakes her head, short ponytail whipping back and forth. "Nuh-uh. You said you'd do it when we get home."

"Okay," he says. "Do I…always sign your agenda?"

Emma's gaze goes shifty. She looks down at her lap. "Most of the time."

Dean persists. "When don't I?"

Emma mumbles something.

"What was that?"

"Last week I forgot," she mumbles, only a little more loudly. Still looking at her hands. "Ms. Pond put me on green."

Dean has no idea what this means. At least not for a second, until he remembers one of the first grade teachers Sam had, who doled out behavioral punishments by pulling colors. He started on blue, and if he was bad, he got put on green, then yellow, then red. Sammy cried the time he got put on green for having food spilled on his homework.

"Shit," he says. "Sorry, kid."

Emma's head snaps up. Her eyes are wide, and Dean remembers himself too late. "Uh--I mean--"

"HOME," announces the display, with a loud chime.

He looks up, foot automatically going to the brake. They're in front of a small townhouse, the driveway and garage so narrow that the Impala probably wouldn't even be able to turn into it. There's probably some way to automatically open the garage from the car, but Dean just parks in the driveway, pulling the keys out of the ignition.

There's more townhouses on either side of this one, he sees as he steps out of the car. There's also an elderly couple walking down the sidewalk on the opposite end of the road, and they raise their hands in greeting at him. "Evening, Dean!"

He raises a hand back, uncertainly. Then he turns to face the house again, turning his keys over in his hand.

Emma is halfway up the front walk, her eyes sort of wary on him. He glances at Cas, who has come around to the front of the car. Nothing in his steady gaze says _stop_ , so Dean shrugs, a little, under his uncomfortable suit jacket and heads after Emma to the front door, unlocking it with the only brass key on the ring.

It opens easily. The hinges are well-oiled, no sound made as the door swings open, and he pauses for a second before stepping over the threshold, noting the absence of any salt.

Inside it a high-ceilinged atrium leads to a staircase and a wide doorway opening into what looks like a living room. Emma moves past him, up the stairs, peeling off her tennis shoes and hooking them into her fingers as she goes, and Dean ignores the gut-kick reflex to make her come back downstairs and stick behind him until he's cleared the whole house.

There's a large, expensive-looking decorative carpet in the center of the floor. Dean nudges up the edge with the toe of one of his shiny loafers as Cas steps inside behind him, shutting the door. There's no Devil's Trap on the parquet underneath.

Jeez. Parquet.

So, not supernaturally knowledgeable, then, whichever Dean's life they've landed in. He looks around again as he walks deeper into the house, into the living room that appears to share an open floor plan with the kitchen, a single large, marble-countered island separating the one from the other. There's not really any family photos on the walls, the decorations limited to several pieces of modern art.

Something thunders back down the stairs. It's Emma, in a ridiculously fluffy pink robe that has purple butterflies stitched across it. "Here!" She hands a spiral-bound book to him, then runs back to the stairs again, clambering up them. A minute later, he hears a door shut and then a shower starting, and the nearly unintelligible sounds of singing.

He grins despite himself. Looks over at Cas, who looks perplexed.

"That's Zeppelin," Dean tells him. "You hear that? She's singing Zeppelin." He shakes his head, wistfulness slipping in to water down the amusement. "All right, I'm calling it. This is definitely some sort of djinn dream."

Cas purses his lips, following Dean into the kitchen. Dean can't still get over how fucking weird he looks in the everyday Joe clothes, but then he catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the stainless steel fridge and concedes that he's not looking too Dean-like, himself. His hair's gelled weird, all flat against his head like some sort of magazine model. "I don't think so. If that were so, we would not be occupying the same fantasy."

Dean turns around, leaning against the marble-topped island. "Okay, A?" he says. "Don't call it a fantasy. B? You're, like, half human, half angel, half weird Lucifer possession right now. I don't think any of the normal rules really apply to you, man."

Cas smolders for a minute, like maybe he's going to refute this. Then he sighs and looks away. It's more human a gesture than Dean's really comfortable with, and he ducks his head forward to catch Cas's glance. "Hey. I was joking."

"No, you weren't," Cas says. "Your description of my…status is accurate. Except for the fractions. It is not possible to be three halves of something."

Dean half smiles. "Cas. You kind of redefine what is and isn't possible, buddy."

Cas lifts his head to look Dean on fully. He squints. "I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or not."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, me neither." He lifts the agenda Emma handed him and lays it on the island counter. It's open to the week of May 5, with none of the days' Parent/Guardian Signature spaces filled in. Dean flips back a couple pages and sees, in each of the five weekday boxes, a very, _very_ neat signature in small, impeccable cursive: _Dean Smith._

He lets out a breath.

"What?" Cas leans around him to peer at the agenda.

"Just--" Dean takes the pen from the spiral binding and signs mechanically, nearly forgetting to write _Smith_ instead of _Winchester_. His cursive's absolute shit compared to the other Dean's; anyone actually looking for continuity will be able to tell this is a forgery. "I think I know where we are."

"Where?"

"C'mon." Dean shuts the agenda and rounds the island. Cas follows him upstairs, where, from the sounds of it, Emma's moved on from "Stairway to Heaven" to "Bad Moon Rising." Which doesn't really make sense. Dean Smith hadn't struck him as a Zeppelin kind of guy. More like a smooth jazz or Beethoven.

There's four other doors on the second floor. One's the bathroom Emma's playing karaoke in, another's a linen closet full of an assortment of Disney character-themed sheets and pillow cases. The third one, which Dean opens with a ginger rap to the door, is clearly Emma's. There's a frilly white canopy draped over a pink and white bed, and stuffed animals and discarded clothing cover the floor.

The last door is shut. Dean knocks, once, and waits. Which is stupid, because if there _was_ anyone here, they would have already come out to all Emma's racket, especially if they were--

Her mom.

He opens the door. Inside is a queen-sized bed and dark cherry wood bed set. It's way neater than Emma's, nothing in sight but a tablet and a pair of neatly folded reading glasses on the nightstand closer to the door. The bed's not made, though, one side of the dark green comforter and tan sheets tossed back. The other half of the bed looks untouched, which pretty much answers the Significant Other question. Somewhere, inside, a part of Dean breathes a sigh of relief, and somewhere else, another sinks in disappointment.

There's a pair of yellow suspenders discarded on the unmade half of the bed. It pretty much confirms the name Dean saw in Emma's agenda, but he crosses to the two doors on the near wall, anyway, and throws them both open.

One is a master bath, and the other is a walk-in closet. Cas follows him into the closet, eyeing the walls. One is lined with a shoe rack and special hangers for ties, suspenders and belts. Another is lined with neatly pressed dress shirt, and the last one is crammed with suits in plastic dry cleaning bags.

Dean plucks at one of the bags, then tilts his head back to look over his shoulder at Cas. "Remember that place I told you about with Zachariah?"

Cas is tilting his head at the row of suits. "The alternate future? Or the office building?"

If he needed a reminder that things could be worse, well. At least this isn't 2014. "The office building." He nods at the suspenders on the wall. "With my alternate ego the yuppie."

Castiel runs his fingers over them. Dean leaves him to it and heads back out of the bedroom just in time to encounter Emma exiting the bathroom in a cloud of heavily flower-scented steam and her fluffy pink robe. Her hair is a giant tangled mess.

She eyes him hopefully again and holds out a comb.

He takes it uncertainly. Eyeing the Medusa-like mess in front of him, he decides he'll never complain about Sam's hair again.

 

In the end, though, it's kind of soothing. Emma settles down on her bed with a book, one leg hanging over the side to the floor, and Dean sits behind her, combing. She has some sort of detangling spray--John Frieda, the front says, and Dean recognizes it vaguely from Lisa's bathroom counter--that makes the snarls a lot easier to comb out, even if it does leave his fingers feeling like they're covered in Leviathan goo. He untangles the knots one at a time as Emma reads a book that has a picture of horses on the cover. She stumbles over some of the words, sounding them out, and Dean has to lean over her shoulder a few times to look at the page and help her with them. He doesn't miss how embarrassed she seems every time she needs help, her shoulders hunching up a little and her voice going quieter.

When her hair's been combed out and braided, Emma puts the book on her nightstand and crawls under her covers, pulling them over her head. Dean stands up and stretches, spine popping.

"Dad?" comes the muffled voice through the blankets. "Will you pick me up early tomorrow?"

"Early?" Dean looks around her room as if something there'll give him the answer. All he sees is his reflection in her bureau mirror, still in the dark blue suit, tie slightly loosened at his neck. He feels, almost, unrecognizable. "Sure. Why not."

The blanket whips back down. She eyes him suspiciously. Suspiciously and…well. He wore the same look too many times as a kid not to recognize the tentative hope behind it.

His hand curls, slightly. If it was the real him, he'd understand Emma's hesitation to believe him. But she thinks he's Dean Smith. The guy may be a pansy in a Prius, but it's not like he has the manic depressive daddy issues Dean does.

Luckily, Emma changes the subject, wiggling out from under her comforter."Do you think Mr. Novak's okay?"

"Uh. Yeah? Why wouldn't he be?"

Emma looks down again. "He's away from his house," she says, hugging the stuffed alligator in her arms. "Maybe he misses it."

Dean thinks, with a stab, of Heaven. How sad Cas looked was he was talking Hester and Inias, how pathetically eager and hopeful he'd been.

_The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!_

"Yeah," he says. "Maybe he does, kiddo."

"Do you think he wants to borrow one of my friends?" Emma kicks back her blanket, and despite the solemnity of her face, and his thoughts, Dean nearly laughs at the sight it reveals: dozens of stuffed animals arranged carefully under her comforter, with just enough space in the middle of them for an eight-year-old. She studies them all, wriggling her toes under a plush squirrel and pink, heart-covered snake, then holds out the one in her arms, the alligator. "Mr. Chompers can make sure he's not lonely."

Dean's first impulse is to say, _No, kiddo, that's okay_. But he hears himself say, "Thanks, kid," and takes it from her instead, tucking the fat alligator under his arm. "I'll give it to Mr. Novak."

Emma snuggles back under her covers into her cocoon of animals again. Her eyes are big in the glow from the moon-shaped nightlight in the corner that turns on automatically when Dean turns off her night side lamp. "Good night, Daddy."

"Night, kid." He shuts her door behind him and heads back down the hall.

Cas is standing by the window when he comes back into the bedroom. Dean tosses the stuffed alligator at him. "From Emma."

Cas catches it with surprising grace. He turns it over in his hands, studying it with a creased brow. Then he looks up. "Dean."

Dean doesn't look up from where he's rifling through Dean Smith's dresser drawers for some clothes that aren't a suit and tie. "What."

"How did you know her name?"

Dean's hands still. Then he goes back to rummaging through the drawers. There's monogrammed pajamas in here, for God's sake. "Lucky guess."

Cas must know he's lying. How could he not? But he doesn't push, and Dean goes into the bathroom to get changed, ignoring the  way Cas is studying the stuffed animal in his hands.

Dean Smith's monogrammed pajamas are dark red and long-sleeved. Dean ignores the top in favor of simply keeping on the thin white Hanes t-shirt under his dress shirt and pulls on the pajamas pants. There's an assortment of bottles and soaps on the bathroom's long black marble counter, all of which he ignores in favor of splashing some water on his face and blinking at himself in the mirror. Then he splashes some more water until his hair isn't gelled flat against his head anymore, just damp and spiked.

After that, he feels a little bit more like himself. Or would, if he actually had any clue who he's supposed to be, anymore.

He…really hadn't expected to come through the Dick Roman Valkyrie plot alive, to be honest. And to be even more honest…he's not really sure he's pleased that he did.

He lets out a breath. Presses his face into a hand towel and exhales, hard. Then he tosses the towel onto the counter and opens the door.

Cas turns from the window when Dean comes out. Dean raises a brow at him. "You still doing, the, uh. Sleeping thing?"

Cas looks thoughtful. "I don't think so." He's quiet for a minute, and Dean senses he's turning something over in his head. "Dean."

Dean hangs Dean Smith's suit jacket up in the closet. Reaches for a pants hanger and puts those up, too. "Yeah, man."

"I think…" Cas squints, kind of like someone feeling around in their mouth with their tongue for a piece of stuck food. "I think that I have been purged of Lucifer's effects."

Dean keeps puttering with the hem of the suit pants for a minute before that sinks in. Then he wheels around. "What?"

"I haven't had any hallucinations since we arrived here. And I feel…" He looks down at his fingers, as though he can see through them to the bones and nerves, and maybe he can. "Clean."

Dean snorts before he can help it. Maybe because he'll never be able to get the image of Cas, oozing blood and Leviathan goo, out of his brain. Not even with fifty gallons of Borax. "Good for you."

Cas glares at him. Dean realizes he's being a dick, and is too tired to care. He flops down on the bed, head sinking into the soft pillow. "Lie down, Cas."

Cas stands stiffly.

"Lie down," Dean repeats. "If we're stuck in some sort of weird djinn dream, we're not getting split up."

Cas joins him stiffly on the bed, sitting on its edge. His back is very straight. "I told you that I'm not convinced that is what this is."

"Could be," Dean says. "Boning Dick Roman sends his ass straight back to Purgatory, right? Djinn go to Purgatory. Maybe we got stuck in some sort of…I dunno. Collision of worlds, or something."

Cas doesn't look convinced. Dean lifts a leg and shoves at Cas's hip with his bare foot. He wants to stop thinking about djinn dreams, and Zachariah, and why the hell his subconscious would stick him in a reality where he's a suspenders-wearing pansy and his monster kid is alive _._ "Would you just lie down? You're makin' me nervous."

Cas grunts and lowers himself to a horizontal position, head on the pillow next to Dean's. He clasps his hands stiffly over his stomach. He's quiet for a moment before: "It feels more like Gabriel's work," he says quietly.

Dean's quiet for a minute. "He's dead, Cas."

"Perhaps," Cas says softly. "Perhaps not. I saw him, when I was--" He stops. "I thought he was part of Lucifer's deceptions. But if…"

"If what?" Dean says tiredly. "He's dead, Cas."

"I was dead," Cas says after a long moment. His voice is very quiet. "If our Father could see fit to bring me back so many times, when I have committed such evil…"

Dean rolls over, shutting his eyes.

Cas trails off.

They lie there, in the dark.

 

Dean wakes the next morning to the sound of a shrieking smoke alarm. He jackknifes upright in bed. Next to him, it's empty. Cas is gone.

Panic thrashes in his chest. Resignation just as quickly muffles it--it's not like it's the first time he's turned around and found Cas gone. It shouldn't really surprise him.

He scrambles out of the bed clumsily, snatching the robe he sees on the door hook and yanking it on as he thunders down the stairs.

He stops short in the kitchen doorway.

Cas is standing at the counter with a fork in his hand, looking confused. Emma is dragging a tall stool from the island and climbing onto it with a spatula in her hand, trying to slap the wailing smoke alarm mounted high on the wall with it.

"Turn--off--!" she pants, jumping.

"Whoah!" Dean shouts, grabbing her just as she starts to teeter backward. "Careful!" He slings her under one arm and grabs the spatula with the other, pressing it up against the button on the front of the smoke alarm until the shrieking stops.

He closes his eyes for a minute, reveling in the silence and the fact that Cas is still here. Then he looks down. Emma blinks back at him, bangs hanging in her eyes. "Seriously? That seemed like a good idea?"

"No?" she offers.

He shakes his head and sets her down. She's in half of a uniform--a little kid camisole with lacy straps and a plaid uniform skirt, the really ugly kind that private school kids wear. It figures Dean Smith's kid wouldn't go to public school.

He looks at Cas. Who looks guilty.

"I came downstairs," he says. "Emma persuaded me to attempt making breakfast."

"It's just _waffles_ ," Emma says. "They're not that hard."

Dean looks at her. She looks back, and rubs her nose. There's toothpaste in her hair. He thumbs it out, showing her his thumb. She looks dismayed. Rubs her nose again, miserably. "Sorry."

Dean frowns at her. "Not that big a deal, kid. How about you go upstairs and finish getting dressed? We'll finish breakfast down here."

Emma nods, still looking dejected, and trudges upstairs. Dean frowns after her for a minute, then turns around to look at Cas. He points at him with the spatula. "Sit down."

Cas folds himself into a chair at the counter. He folds his hands, looking contrite.

Dean goes to the counter where he'd been standing. There's a box of frozen waffles out, next to the toaster, which is still smoking faintly. Dean pokes two charred squares out of it and glances at the waffle box. He wrinkles his nose when he sees they're gluten-free.

"Fuck that." He crams the box back into the freezer and starts sticking his head into the cupboards, looking for flour. " _That's_ what I'm talking about." He grabs the bag and some milk from the fridge and starts making pancake batter. "Cas, grab me a pan and turn on some music."

There's no sound of movement. He glances over his shoulder as he pours the flour into a bowl. Cas is still sitting in the chair, eyeing him. He looks…concerned.

Dean raises his eyebrow. "All right there, Cas?"

"Are _you_ all right?" Cas counters. "This is not your world, Dean."

"I know that," Dean says. "Jeez, what do you take me for? I'm just making breakfast, man."

Cas squints at him. Dean huffs and gets a pan out of the cupboard himself. The kitchen stays quiet for the next fifteen minutes except for the sizzling of batter hitting the pan.

"This is not how I expected you to react," Cas says finally, over the sound of Dean rinsing the batter bowl out in the sink. The kitchen smells frigging awesome. "We don't know where Sam is."

Dean grunts. Sometimes he doesn't understand why even after years of knowing him, Cas doesn't get that Dean tries _not_ to think about the things that'll drive him crazy. "Yeah, sort of trying not to think about that, Cas."

Cas scrutinizes him. He's squinting; it's his _I'm x-raying your soul_ squint. "You're being very patient with me."

Dean looks at him as he brings the steaming plate of pancakes to the table. "Yeah, well, you were crazy and I dragged you back into a fight you didn't want to be part of, so sue me for using the kiddie gloves."

Cas looks away. "I told you last night I feel purged of Lucifer's influence."

"Yeah, well. I'm thinking it's probably not that easy." Dean forks three pancakes onto his plate and digs in. Mouth full, he shouts, "EMMA! BREAKFAST!" He swallows as he looks back at Cas. "Look. Don't worry, once we get her to school, we'll research what the hell's going on. Okay?"

Feet clatter down the stairs. Emma stops at the foot of them, fully dressed now, and stares at him. "Dad! You're not ready!"

"Taking today off, kiddo," he says around another mouthful of pancakes. He taps the chair between him and Cas. "C'mon. Eat."

Emma doesn't move closer. She looks wary, if anything. "But it's Tuesday."

"So?"

"Tuesday is meeting day," Emma says. She sounds very serious, and Dean wonders again what kind of eight-year-old is so up to date with her dad's work schedule. "You can't skip meeting day."

Dean glances at Cas. His face is creased in confusion as he looks at Emma; he's no help.

"Um," Dean says. "Okay. Uh--you guys finish up down here. Cas--just--don't touch anything, okay?"

Cas looks miffed. Dean shoves the rest of his plate at pancakes at him and heads upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. It's already seven-forty-five, which is probably late since Ben's elementary school always started at eight-fifteen, so he forgoes a shower and pulls on the first suit he grabs from the closet. He drags a comb through his hair and calls it good, then washes his face and grimaces at his stubbled reflection before heading back downstairs to pull on the loafers he kicked off in the atrium the day before.

Cas and Emma drift in from the kitchen, Emma hopping on one foot. She stops abruptly when she sees Dean, standing straight.

"What should I do?" Cas says. He's still in his clothing from the day before, but unlike Dean's, it is pristinely unwrinkled.

"Um. Come with us." Dean grabs his arm and pulls him out the door, grabbing the keys from the front table and locking the door behind them once Emma's out. "Hey, Em?" he says as they pile into the stupid Prius. He stops and looks at the display, then twists around in his seat. "Let's play a game. Tell me how to get to your school."

Emma looks wary all over again. Dean internally kicks himself. He needs to do a better job of actually seeming like her dad. Not even so much because she could raise a fuss about him being some creepy weirdo pretending to be her dad as because he doesn't want her to feel scared. He's been in that place before, knowing something wasn't right with his dad but being too scared to say anything about it. At least he had Sammy to distract him from the fear, the uncertainty and dread, but Emma hasn't got any siblings to pretend things are okay for.

It strikes him how ridiculous he's being. The kid's not even real. This is a fictional place, regardless of whether a djinn, or Gabriel, or fucking Zachariah made it--everything here but him and Cas are paper cut-outs, figments of his imagination that won't exist once he's gone. He doesn't need to worry about scaring the-thing-that's-supposed-to-look-like-Emma.

And almost as if in confirmation of how very little he needs to care about what happens in this world, Emma gives him the directions without any protest.

Dean _doesn't_ think about how he did the same thing when his dad scared him and he was trying to placate him.

 

There's a car line when they get to the school, which is a sprawling, pristine campus of a place complete with three different playgrounds and a spired chapel that lords over all of it. A friggin' car line, stretching out onto the road from the U-shaped drive for nearly a quarter of a mile.

Dean drums his hands on the steering wheel, Dean Smith's jacket pulling awkwardly as his elbows and shoulders, as they inch forward in the line. Then something occurs to him. He twists around to look at Emma. "Did you get your lunch?"

"Yes, sir." She looks proud of herself, unzipping her backpack to show the pink lunchbox zipped inside. Then she freezes, looking inside her backpack.

"What?"

Emma's shoulders hunch. She mumbles something.

Dean tries not to get impatient. "Speak up, kiddo."

"…I forgot my agenda."

Dean huffs a sigh, glancing at the clock. They're probably going to be stuck in this line for another fifteen minutes, at least. "Do you need it?"

"No," she whispers. "It's okay."

Cas's brows furrow. "You implied yesterday that you were punished the last time you didn't have it."

"It's okay," Emma says again, still whispering.

Cas tilts his head. Then he looks at Dean. "I could bring it."

Dean glances over at him.

"I can drop you off at your place of work," Cas elaborates," and go home to retrieve Emma's agenda and bring it to her."

"Dude," Dean says lowly. "You don't even know how to drive."

Cas casts him one of his impatient pissy looks. It says _I am an angel, Dean, I can figure out how to drive a car_ , and Dean's only slightly surprised by how good it feels to see that kind of _I am 100% done with you, Dean Winchester_ expression on Cas's face again. "It doesn't appear to be especially complicated."

Dean only deliberates for a minute. He'd figured he and Cas could head to his office at Sandover and spend the morning researching there, but… "Okay."

 

It's one of the weirdest feelings ever, watching Cas climb behind the steering wheel of the car and drive away. Dean tugs at the collar of his suit and turns away, wondering what the consequences of dying are here. What if Cas gets in an accident? Dean died plenty of times in the Mystery Spot without much long-reaching consequence, but what if this isn't one of Gabriel's weird realities? What if it _is_ a djinn dream and dying plucks Cas out of it and leaves Dean stuck here?

Cas wouldn't leave him here, though. If he emerged from whatever weird djinn dream this is, he'd find a way to break Dean out of it, too.

And after all, it's not like Dean would fight that hard to stay here. Not like he had that first djinn dream, with his mom--

"Mr. Smith?"

He glances up. A well-dressed woman is standing in the parking garage elevator. She tilts her head at him, and Dean tries to figure out where he knows her from. Maybe she's familiar because somewhere in his brain he's still got the ghosts of Dean Smith's memories floating around.

"Hey," he says, as, uh, jovially as he can. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," she says. "Are you headed up?"

He glances toward the exit of the parking garage again. The Prius is pulling around the corner, tail lights vanishing. "Uh. Yes."

He has a brief minute of panicking wondering what floor he's headed to as the doors slide shut. He'd found his work address filed in his phone, the address information located along with his phone number and extension under _WORK_ , but it hadn't included his office number, or even floor, and he starts to sweat as the doors shut. This whole coming to work thing was a really bad idea. He should've stayed at the house with Cas and figured out what the hell they're doing here. But maybe he'll meet Sam here, and they'll be able to figure something out. Hell, maybe the Sam will even be _his_ Sam; maybe Sam got dragged into this reality again, too. There aren't any Sams, Wessons or Winchesters in his phone's contact list; he checked it last night, but maybe this isn't exactly the same reality, despite all the similarities. He certainly didn't have a kid, the last time he was here.

"Floor thirty, right?" the woman says.

"Right," Dean says automatically.

She gets off at the twenty-first floor, and a few men in suits file into the car at floor twenty-two. One, who is talking into a Bluetooth headset, pauses talking to greet Dean by name, and follows him out of the elevator when it opens on floor thirty. There's the sound of murmuring coming from a set of double doors flung open at the end of the dark-carpeted hallway, and Dean follows the Bluetooth guy toward them.

 

The rest of the day is a flurry of meetings concerning topics about which Dean knows approximately zilch. It doesn't seem to matter, thankfully: Whenever any of the (all vaguely, frustratingly familiar) people around the board room table ask him something, a response emerges almost reflexively from his mouth. Whenever he looks down, too, the tablet he grabbed from his nightstand at home and put on his bed is showing some relevant graph or figure, and it freaks him out as badly as it relieves him, the magical convenience of it.

The other good thing is that Zachariah doesn't make an appearance at any point. Which Dean hadn't exactly expected, considering he killed the douchebag, but--still. Appreciate the good things.

The sucky part is that Gabriel doesn’t make an appearance, either, not even on any of the interactive video conferences that get projected on the screen at the end of the table late in the morning.

Dean doesn't know how much stock he puts by Cas's theory that Gabriel might still be alive. He's no stranger to wishful thinking, although Gabriel was such an ass to Cas the times Dean saw them together that he's not sure _why_ Cas wants the guy to be alive… Well. Maybe he can understand it. It's gotta be lonely, wondering what the hell you were brought back to life for when you feel like a piece of shit.

He nearly laughs into his fist at that. A dark, humorless laugh that makes the guy beside him looks over. His name's Gordon, a dark-skinned dude with eyes as sharp at his teeth.

"All right there, Smith?"

Dean nods and sits forward, paying renewed attention to the Vice President of Blah Blah Blah talking on the projector screen. He flexes his fingers.

He needs a drink.

 

He plans to text Cas at lunch, but there's no time. The projector screen is turned off, and then everyone filters into an adjacent room where another long table is set with a white linen tablecloth and place settings with numerous forks are at each seat. Dean hesitates behind one chair, then sits down when Gordon and a dark-haired woman who sat across from him in the board room do. Catering staff in black uniforms lean around their chairs to place drinks and colorful salads in front of them.

"So, Winchester," a man on Gordon's other side says. "Where're the suspenders, man? You tryin' a new fashion?"

"Yeah," Dean says, flashing a smile. "I finally saw the light at the end of the closet."

Laughter ripples across the table. Dean takes a bite of salad to avoid being asked anything else, suppressing a grimace at the weird fruity taste of the dressing. For a minute, he can _taste_ that maple-cayenne cleanse shit from his last stint as Dean Smith, and he nearly gags.

 

Lunch lasts nearly two hours, people shooting the shit as they work their way through four courses, but they pay for it in the afternoon--the last meeting doesn't wrap up until nearly seven o'clock. Dean, watching the clock on the wall as his foot taps impatiently under the table--seriously, who _cares_ about the projected sales of a new alloy rivet?--suddenly understands why Emma asked about being picked up early, and why she was so surprised when Dean said sure. If he doesn't usually get out until this late on meeting days, who picks her up? He's assuming Cas did, today, but who usually does? Emma knew him well enough to call him Mr. Novak, but he'd think that if he and Dean Smith were friends she'd call him Mr. Cas or Uncle Cas or some shit.

Which brings up a question he should have asked already. Who in the hell is Cas in this place, anyway?

"Do you have anything else to add? Mr. Smith?"

He surfaces from his thoughts, straightening up in his seat. "Sorry, what?"

The pale dark-haired lady is looking at him. "I was asking if you had any suggestions to add to the information inserts going out to the wholesalers."

"Uh," he says. "Nope. None. Sounds good."

She doesn't look impressed. Which isn't an expression Dean's unused to. He flashes his usual get-out-of-jail-free smirk, and she just looks away. "Anyone else?"

 

When the meeting finally lets out, he wriggles a hand inside his collar to loosen it, and his tie, reaching into his pocket for his phone. Too late, it occurs to him that a) he doesn't have the car, and b) he doesn't think Cas's number is in his phone, if Cas even has a phone here--he hadn't bothered to find that out, either.

But when he emerges from the elevator into the lobby, walking across the gold-veined marble floor, he sees the Prius parked outside through the glass front walls. He breaks into a jog, his briefcase bouncing against his side, and pushes through one of the revolving doors.

Cas looks up when he raps on the window. He's in the driver's seat, and Emma's in the back, holding a book open on her lap. It looked like she was reading aloud, again.

"Hey," Dean says breathlessly when Cas unlocks the door. There's a stupid, tight relief in his chest. "Sorry. Did you guys wait long?"

"About an hour," Cas says. "The signs instructed me not to park here until after six o'clock."

Dean cranes his head as he buckles his seatbelt to see the signs on the side of the road; TOWING ZONE: NO PARKING 8-6 PM MON-FRI. "Yeah, good call." He looks over at Cas, taking in his appearance for the first time. "Uh…what's with the noodle necklace?"

"Dad," Emma says, sitting forward in the backseat, suddenly. Cas says calmly, "Seatbelt, Emma," and Dean goggles at him. "Mr. Novak picked me up from Kid Care early!"

"Oh yeah?" Dean says. He's still looking at the macaroni necklace strung around Cas's neck on red yarn. It's striking him that Cas is still, maybe, insane, despite his assertion to the contrary, and maybe sending him out on his own all day wasn't the best idea.

Cas meets Dean's eyes like he knows what he's thinking. "Apparently," he says somberly, "I teach at Emma's school."

Dean stares at him. Then he bursts out laughing.

 

"So." He kicks his feet up onto the chair opposite him at the kitchen table. The table's got two half-eaten boxes of pizza on it, crusts lying discarded on Emma's plate. She's in the shower again, singing something--Dean's not quite sure what it is, but from the sounds of it, Emma only knows the one line to it, since she keeps singing it over and over again ("Bet you didn't know that I was da-a-ANGerous!"). "Kindergarten teacher? Really?"

"Apparently." Cas fiddles with a piece of spinach on his pizza with a fork. Dean ordered a vegetable-covered pizza as a concession to providing Emma with _some_ form of vegetables, and Cas surprised him by taking a piece, although he didn't seem too pleased with the taste, chewing slowly and with a put-upon expression. "Do you believe me now that this seems more like one of Gabriel's machinations than a djinn dream?"

Dean inclines his head in concession as he takes a swig from one of the--ugh--light beers that was in the fridge. Putting Cas in charge of a bunch of five-year-olds does seem like Gabriel's style.

"Bet you're not too bad at it," he offers. "You're pretty good with the kid, up there."

Cas doesn't look convinced. "That is because she is not a real child. None of them are."

Dean pauses, bottle at his lips. After a moment, he mutters, "Yeah," and drains it.

Cas is quiet for a few minutes. His gaze is practically a weight on the side of Dean's face, and eventually, Dean clears his throat and straightens out of his slouch in the chair. "So. About getting out of here."

Cas squints. "If this is Gabriel's doing, there is likely a lesson he wishes us to learn from this."

"What, the lesson of pretending to be dead and hiding out in a fake dimension while other people take care of the world's shit?" Dean reaches for another beer. "Asshole."

Cas's hand closes around the neck of the bottle, arresting its momentum. Dean looks at his hand, closed around it, then at Cas.

Cas looks back steadily. "You are drinking too much."

Dean snorts. "What're you talking about? I didn't even have any until I got back here."

"This is your fifth bottle."

"They're _light_ ," Dean growls. "It's practically water."

Cas looks at him. Dean glares back. Finally, Cas lets go of the beer. He looks away.

Dean draws his lip under his teeth, still glaring. He opens the bottle loudly, deliberately.

"Bet you didn't know that I was DANgerous!"

Emma's voice floats down the stairs, and then there's the sound of shampoo bottles landing on the floor. "Oops!"

Dean sighs. Puts down the bottle. "Em, you okay?" he hollers, already pushing away from the table to go check on her.

A pause. Then, "I'm okay!"

Dean stops, hands braced on the table. He eyes the bottle for a minute, then Cas's turned-away face. Then he sighs, again, and pushes to his feet.

"Go turn the laptop on," he says. "I'll clean off the table."

 

They're able to find all of the ingredients for an angel summoning like the one Cas had used to summon Balthazar what feels like lifetimes ago. Even with the express shipping afforded by Dean Smith's gold card, the estimated time of delivery for the reliquary from Mexico and the myrrh from Oman is two weeks away. Which means that in the meantime they get to wait.

"It could be worse," Dean remarks the next day, as they follow Emma back into the church where she plays volleyball. "We could be stuck in…I dunno. Purgatory. With Leviathan and crap."

"I suppose," Cas says, though he doesn't look entirely convinced. He settles into one of the chairs lining the side of the gymnasium, and Dean plops down next to him.

He's still in his work suit--Cas picked him up from Sandover with Emma already in the car, suited up for volleyball practice, and they drove straight here. He hooks a finger behind the knot of his tie to loosen it, wishing Dean Smith wore clip-ons, and wishing, for a minute, that if they had to be switched to some weird reality, whoever was in charge of it would have made him the kindergarten teacher and Cas the uptight suit. At least Cas usually wore the part. Dean would've been way more comfortable in the black slacks and dark green collared shirt he helped Cas pick out for work this morning.

Really, if you thought about it, whoever's behind this is being kind of lazy. Re-using one of Zachariah's playgrounds instead of making up their own? But if it _is_ Gabriel, maybe there's a message there. Smith was about the gayest version of himself Dean ever met. (And how messed-up is it that Dean can actually say that? That he's met multiple versions of himself?) Maybe it's a sign.

He studiously doesn't look over at Cas. Or think about the fact that they'd both slept in Dean Smith's bed against last night. Cas was as rigid as the first night at first but eventually relaxed as he actually, legitimately fell asleep.

Which had shaken Dean even as it had made something inside him relax. Cas, sleeping. Like a human.

Like Dean.

It still doesn't make sense, though. If Gabriel's pushing the _Get With Cas_ agenda, what's Emma doing here? In what way would having his half Amazon spawn running around underfoot motivate Dean to tell Cas _please stop leaving. Please stop leaving, I need you_?

"Dean!"

He flinches. His head snaps up just in time to see Cas's hand shoot in front of his face.

 _THWACK!_ A pink-striped volleyball hits Cas's palm, hard, bouncing off and rolling away.

"Shit," escapes Dean. He stares at the back of Cas's hand, still blinking against the whoosh of air from the volleyball's impact. That thing hit Cas _hard_. "Are you okay?"

Cas retracts his hand and holds it above his lap. He examines the bright red imprint on his palm, frowning. "These children do not have very good aim."

"Sorry, Mister!" a girl on the court shouts. She runs forward to grab the ball as it rolls back toward her.

Dean just barely keeps from shooting her a dirty look. He sees Emma, on the other side of the court practicing with one of her blue-shirted teammates in the few minutes before practice starts, looks over. Dean waves at her that it's okay, and she turns back to toss the ball as Dean turns to examine Cas's hand himself.

"Can’t argue with that," he says in response to Cas's earlier comment. "Does it hurt to move?"

"It is tolerable," Cas says. He opens and closes his hand under Dean's gaze, flexing the fingers. The red is fading, slowly, from the inside of his palm and fingers. Despite himself, it makes Dean think of the red handprint that used to be on his shoulder, and he chews on his lip.

"What is it?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nothin'." He looks back out at the court, where Emma and her partner are still the only blue-shirted kids on the court. They've switched from tossing the ball to kicking it back and forth, giggling, and they both jump when their coach blows his whistle sharply. He's a balding big-bellied guy in a blue shirt to match theirs. "We're not playing soccer, ladies!"

Emma looks immediately bashful. She casts a guilty look behind her at Dean, who raises his eyebrows. There's not time for much other than that, because a voice says, "Cas?"

He looks up. And stares.

Cas stares, too. Rising up, halfway to his feet. "Jimmy…?"

Jimmy Novak looks puzzled. So, behind him, does Amelia. _Join the club,_ Dean thinks, and decides he won't even be surprised if, or when, every other human being--or non-human being, he thinks, remembering Emma--they've ever fucked over shows up in this sorry trip down memory lane. "What are you doing here?"

"I…" Cas gives Dean a deer-in-the-headlights look. It looks so much like _I don't fight, I watch the bees_ Cas that Dean's chest gives an automatic, panicked kick. "I came to watch."

"Claire?" Amelia says.

Cas's forehead creases. "No, Emma."

"I asked him to come," Dean says quickly. "I…have to leave early. For work."

Jimmy looks at him strangely.

"That's….nice of you, Cas," Amelia says. She looks at Dean. "Dean, right? I think we met, back at the Christmas play."

"Yeah," Dean says automatically. "Yeah, Claire was…"

"The third Wise Man." Amelia smiles proudly.

"Exactly," Dean says. "Yeah, I remember." He darts a glance out at the court, looking for which girl could be Claire Novak, and sees a chubby kid with blonde braids hopping on one foot next to Emma, who's standing nervously straight as their coach demonstrates an underhand serve.

"I didn't realize you two knew each other." Amelia's looking at him and Cas.

"Um," says Dean. "Yup. We do." He clears his throat and tugs at his tie, again, because this changes things. Suddenly the stuff he's sort of just ignored paying attention to because it was easier not to think about it are hitting him afresh, because it was one thing for Cas to stay over at Dean Smith's house and trolley around Dean Smith's kid when they thought Cas Novak was as isolated here as Dean's Cas is, but it's a completely different thing in the context of Cas having, like, a _family_ in the picture.

Shit.

He turns back toward the court. After a minute of awkward silence, Jimmy and Amelia do the same, settling into chairs on Cas's other side. Jimmy says something to Amelia about remembering Claire's Gatorade and a distant part of Dean, the part not freaking out in the innards of his brain, thinks guiltily that it didn't occur to him for them to stop and grab a sports drink for Emma to have at break time.

 

It takes a while, but eventually he manages to focus on the game instead of the river dance his insides are doing. He stares at Emma like he's going to burn a hole through her knee pads with his eyes, and if he had a little more parenting experience, he might have noticed that the harder he watches, the more nervous and clumsy she gets. He doesn't, though. All he sees is that his fake kid's pretty klutzy. She doesn't manage to receive a single ball, and her serves, mostly without fail, land way in front of the net.

He doesn't really care that much. Good at sports, not good at sports, he doesn't care--if anything, it makes him feel a little fonder of her because she's starting to remind him of Sammy when he was a kid, all long legs and no coordination, stumbling all over the place like a baby giraffe.

What he does care about is when he notices that two of Emma's teammates are starting to whisper and snicker every time it's Emma's turn to serve.

He can see that she sees it, too. Her shoulders do that dumb hunching thing, and she doesn't meet anyone's eyes. It makes him wonder why in the hell anyone _chooses_ to put their kids in team sports. It's one thing to make your kids work out to keep them safe from things that go bump in the night; it's a totally different one to shove them out there and make them feel like shit in front of kids who are little assholes for the sake of--what? A game?

He's glowering at the two girls snickering at Emma so hard that he doesn't even see the ball coming. And her head is down, embarrassed, so she doesn't see it, either. But everyone hears the _WHAP!_

Dean's head snaps around. Then he's on his feet, running onto the court, his stupid wingtips squeaking across the polished laminate.

He gets to Emma just as she bursts into tears. Hugs her to him for a second, crouching on the knees of his trousers; then pulls back and pulls her head back, too, hands on either side of her face to examine her.

The whole upper left side of her face is angry red from being hit by the ball, blood rushing to the surface of the impact just like it did in Cas's palm twenty minutes ago. Dean presses his thumb gently along the ridge of her eyebrow, feeling for any breaks, then does the same along her cheekbone and nose. When he's satisfied that nothing's broken, he swings her up onto his hip.

"You're okay. You're okay, kiddo, I've got you."

She cries harder into his shoulder. She's probably more embarrassed than hurt, and it doesn't help that those girls are giggling again. Dean shoots them both the dirtiest glare he can muster as he heads off the court, and it's only having both his hands occupied holding Emma that keeps him from flicking them his middle finger, too.

Cas is waiting for them at the edge, already holding a Ziploc bag full of ice. Dean shrugs his suit jacket off one arm at a time, transferring Emma from one arm to the other and balling it up around the ice bag. Cas presses it against her face as she sniffles.

The coach comes up as the game resumes behind them. "She okay?"

"Yeah," Dean snaps. "No thanks to you."

He looks startled. "Mr. Smith--"

"It's not like I get off on being the bitchy parent, but your players are being asshats. You wanna try teaching them how not to laugh when people get hurt, maybe?"

"Dean," Cas says. Warning.

Dean snarls and turns away. Hearing Cas saying something in his low voice to the coach, he stalks with Emma to their empty chairs on the edge of the court, where Amelia and Jimmy are both leaning forward, looking concerned.

Amelia stands, reaching for Emma to smooth her hair back. "Is she okay?"

Dean resists the urge to pull away from her. Thinks angrily of how this Emma deserves a mom, not a dad who spends more time at his work than he does with her, or one who's not even really her dad. _Deserved_ one, really, and the real Emma would've had one if Dean hadn't gone and let his brother kill her. If Dean hadn't gone and killed Sam's kitsune friend and made Sam feel like he _had_ to kill Dean's Amazon kid.

Emma turns her face more thoroughly into Dean's neck, hiding her face, and he tightens his grip on her automatically. He can feel the condensation from the ice bag seeping through his dress shirt, and he shifts, propping her more solidly on his hip. "Nothing's broken."

"Thank you for the ice," Cas says, in his gravelly voice. He's looking beyond Dean at the court, with an expression like a thundercloud. It makes Dean feel slightly vindicated.

"No problem," Jimmy says. "I've had to run to the ice maker enough times to get bags for Claire, her being a walking ball-magnet might as well pay off somehow. You gonna take her home, Dean?"

"Yeah, we're heading home," Dean says. Loudly, so the coach can hear him. "You coming, Cas?"

He says it without thinking, forgetting the excuse he had made up for Jimmy and Amelia earlier. But though he shoots them a startled, guilty glance, they don't say anything. Jimmy just watches Cas thoughtfully as Cas grabs Emma's equipment bag from the floor between their chairs and leads the way out of the gym.

Emma sniffles once they're out of the gymnasium. Once they're outside, in the muggy air, she lifts her head from Dean's neck. Christ, she's gonna have a hell of a shiner. "You okay, kid?"

She shakes her head.

"All right," Dean says. "Ice cream."

She glances at him, swift, startled. "But it's a school night."

"Doesn't matter," Dean says. "This is an ice cream emergency. Don't you think, Cas?"

Cas nods gravely. "I believe so."

It's a sort of split-second decision, and he wouldn't have done it if it were the Impala, but when they get to the Prius, he tosses Cas the keys. He opens the door for Emma, then climbs into the back seat after her.

She looks at him with fresh wonder. "Dad?"

"What, a guy can't ride in the back with his kid?"

She looks at him.

"C'mon," he says. "We'll be Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, and Cas can be Alfred."

Emma looks at him uncomprehendingly.

And Dean experiences actual, literal chest pain.

 

In the distraction of marathoning the first eight episodes of _The New Batman Adventures_ on Dean Smith's Netflix account, Dean forgets about the whole Cas-Jimmy-Amelia debacle. It's only after he's picked up a conked-out, cookies'n-cream-bearded Emma, tucked her into bed, and gone back to the master bedroom where Cas is perched on the edge of his side of the bed, turning through a small book, that he remembers.

It makes him falter in the doorway, where he's unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. "…hey, Cas."

Cas looks up. He had been quiet through most of the Batman episodes, occasionally asking questions (most of which Dean responded to with, "Dude. He's _Batman_ "), but mostly seeming to be off in his own space. Dean had felt a little hurt, glancing over at some of his favorite moments to see if Cas was as excited by them as Emma and seeing the angel staring into space, face expressionless, but he tried not to let it hurt him. Cas was… _Castiel_ , after all, and it wasn't like he should have expected an angel to take any pleasure from the mundane things that Dean--human, hopeless, and futureless--did.

"About today."

Cas closes his book. "Which part?"

Dean finally finishes wrestling his cufflinks out. "The meeting your vessel and his wife part."

Cas nods. "That." His eyes unfocus again; he's focused inwardly, again.

"Did that…I mean." His hands flutter uselessly at his side for a minute; there's nothing else he can take off without it being inappropriate/pathetic. "I messed up. I'm pretty sure they think we're gay for each other now."

Cas's eyes refocus on them. "So?"

"So…" Dean shrugs uselessly. "Sorry. I didn't wanna make you uncomfortable."

Cas's eyes slide away again. "Why would it matter to me?" he says. "Dean, this is a nonexistent plane of existence. Nothing we do here matters."

Dean looks away. "…yeah. I guess." He's still for a minute, rubbing his socked foot up and down the side of his leg under the hem of his pants. Then he sighs, and goes to the bathroom to get changed.

When he comes out, Cas is in his own version of pajamas, a t-shirt and sweat pants. He's lying on top of the covers, and he's reading a book. Dean thinks it might be the Bible.

He looks at his nightstand and the reading glasses folded on it, the Tom Clancy novel underneath them. He considers picking them up and sitting next to Cas on the bed, against the pillows. But it's too close to what he'd like them to be, too stupid and domestic, them reading shoulder to shoulder, and so he crawls under the covers, and mashes his face into the pillow, and tries to sleep.

 

"Hey, Lenore?" he says when he gets into work that morning. "Any chance you can move up my three o'clock? I need to get out of here early today."

"I can try."

"Awesome," he says, and flashes her a smile.

He spends his lunch break looking up nearby parks and volleyball guides. He finds a PDF file of a pretty good manual for free online and decides to print it out so he can take it along with him after work. But his printer turns out to be on the fritz, so he gets Lenore to show him how to send the pages he wants printed out onto the alternate printer.

"I'll go get them for you," she says once all twenty pages have printed.

"Nah, go back to what you were doing," Dean says. "I'll get them. Thanks for the help."

His ass is tired of sitting in a chair all day, which is kind of dumb because Dean Smith has some sort of lower back cushion thing that should make it a lot easier to sit in all day than a car. Maybe it's just the principle of it, he thinks as he heads to the floor's main desk, raising his hand in a wave to the yellow techies in the break room as he passes them. He chooses to sit in his baby; he didn't choose to get stuck here in Corporate Swivel Chair Land.

There's a suit looking at a sheaf of papers in front of the printer when Dean gets there. He turns around, and the brown hair and guitar-patterned tie are vaguely familiar. Nick, maybe?

"Dean-o," the guy says, and waves the sheaf of papers he's holding. "The hell're are these? _Volleyball_ tips?"

"Yeah," Dean says, and reaches for them.

The guy pulls them out of reach. "Why're you printing out instructions for playing volleyball?"

"Because it's none of your business, maybe?" Dean retorts. "Gimme the papers, asshole."

Nick's jaw drops. Then he focuses on someone behind Dean. "Hey, Gordon, get over here."

Gordon comes over, glancing at the papers Nick hands him. His lips curl in a smile, revealing Crest White Strip teeth. "Didn't know you needed instructions on how to be a fag, Winchester."

Nick laughs.

Dean's blood is rushing in his ears. He can't quite believe this is happening. "Are you fucking me?"

"No, but that teacher of yours is," Gordon says. "Saw him dropping you off this morning, does that mean you're the bitch?"

Dean punches him.

 

Gordon doesn't press charges. Not that Dean gives a flying fuck, except Lenore has a point when she says quietly to him, holding him back from lunging forward to land any more punches on Gordon, that he has a kid to think about.

Except he doesn't, really.

He's sent home early. Early is still late by Cas and Emma's standards--four o'clock, late enough that they're out of school and could come pick him up. He flags down a taxi, instead, swiping his fist across his busted lip as he slides in, and glares angrily out the window as they pass the park he'd decided to take Emma to that afternoon for them to practice serving. He's not going to be any kind of good company, and he realizes that. The cabbie drops him off at a bar they passed on the way for ice cream, last night.

He stalks inside, and he doesn't stumble back out for a long, long time.

 

Cas is waiting in the armchair when he gets back to the townhouse, four shaky tries to get the key into the lock before he finally manages it. The TV is on, and he's staring at it without watching it, and Dean has a weird, woozy sense of déjà vu behind the alcohol clouding his brain, remembering how many times as a kid he saw his dad sitting in their living room the same way.

There's no mom to guide him upstairs with a cool hand slipped through his, though, and so he stops in the entranceway, and sways.

"You're intoxicated."

"Yup."

"Your secretary is concerned you're not yourself."

Dean laughs. The laugh lasts a long time. It's because he's not Dean Smith. Ha ha. He's Dean Winchester. Gold star for Lenore.

Cas doesn't say anything else. He doesn't move, either, and after a few more minutes of laughter and silence, Dean goes upstairs. Falls into bed, and sleeps.

 

He doesn't get home until late the next night. Eight o'clock, and it's clear that Cas thought he wasn't coming home at all by the fact that he and Emma are already upstairs, Emma's voice reading _The Little House on the Prairie_ haltingly, and the empty dishes from dinner are already in the sink.

Dean sits down at the kitchen table, and rubs the heels of his hands against his forehead. Presses until white flashes explode behind his eyelids.

He wants another drink.

Cas comes downstairs to fetch Emma a glass of water. He stops when he sees Dean, then steps past him and fills a cup from the fridge. Dean levers himself to his feet and follows him upstairs, goes into the bedroom to get changed.

"Is that Daddy?" he hears Emma ask Cas.

He closes the bathroom door before he can hear Cas's answer. Showers in water so hot that steam coats every surface in the bathroom when he gets out. He leaves the mirror fogged and gets dressed in Smith's stupid, monogrammed pajamas.

Cas is on the bed when he comes out. In his own pajamas, reading a book. He looks up.

"Hey."

Cas continues to watch him. "Hello."

Dean hangs his discarded clothes in the closet. Hangs the belt from its hanger. Comes back out of the closet and stands there for a moment, hand on the door knob.

"I'm gonna go downstairs, watch some TV."

He can _hear_ Cas's head-tilt. "There is a television in here."

Dean lets out a breath of air that's almost a sneer. Dean Smith has a TV in the kitchen, a TV in the living room, a TV on his bedroom wall. Who needs this much stuff? Who needs to work in a fucking place where people are--

"Dean," Cas says. He's set his book down.

Dean steps backward, over the threshold. "I just need some space tonight. Okay?"

Cas looks concerned for the first time since Dean came home last night. "Then I should be the one to sleep elsewhere."

"No, you shouldn--Cas." Dean rakes a hand through his hair as Cas swings his legs off the bed. "Just. Stay here, okay? This is my bitchfit, I'll deal with it."

He goes downstairs, shutting the door before Cas can follow him. He lies down on the couch, stretched out at first, and staring sightlessly at the comedy show that comes on. But eventually he ends up in a fetal position, forehead against his knees. Breathing hot and loud inside the space of his loneliness.

Eventually he sleeps.

 

He dreams. There's a dark figure standing next to Emma's bed. He says something, drowsy, to it, and it doesn't move. He feels the stretch of his mouth like a smile. He stumbles downstairs.

There's a living room, there's darkness and a glowing TV. There's socked feet silhouetted in front of it, stretched out in an armchair. An El Sol commercial comes on and illuminates the face of the man in the armchair.

A jolt of terror.

He's racing back up the stairs. Hitting the wall, the banister, stumbling. Wrenching open Emma's door just as it explodes in fire.

 

He jerks awake. Panting, sweating. His face slides against the leather of the couch, slippery with sweat. He tries to breathe.

Parts of him are still trembling. He pushes himself off the couch and up the stairs, shaking in the darkness. He stops in front of Emma's closed door, inhales. Pushes it open.

She's a lump under her covers. Snoring, a little, and arm in a death grip around a stuffed shark. He breathes, and there's a flicker of movement in the corner. His head snaps toward it.

It's him. In the mirror over Emma's bureau.

A dark figure standing by her bed. Watching.

He backs out of her room. His heart pounds very hard.

The master bedroom's door is open a crack. He slinks toward it, slinks inside. Goes to the edge of the bed where Cas's shoulder is a slope under the blanket, a slope like his mom's, the nights he crept to her bed after bad dreams and shook her shoulder and whispered wake up, mommy, wake up.

He's not sure if it's a real memory or one he fabricates in that moment, as he reaches out, tentatively, and touches the bump of Cas's shoulder.

The slope moves. Cas shifting, and then he rolls over to focus on Dean blearily. "Dean?"

Dean attempts a smile. He doesn't quite manage it, he thinks his mouth is just trembling. He swallows.

Cas rolls over again. Scoots to the other side of the bed, Dean's side, and Dean swallows again. Climbs into the bed and curls up there, in the warm imprint of Cas's body in the memory foam.

He stays awake a long time, thinking of that dark figure by Emma's bed.

 

He doesn't get up when his alarm goes off the next morning. He turns it off, and rolls into the pillow, and doesn't move. Breathes in the smell of herbal shampoo and listens to Cas and Emma moving around downstairs, Emma's questioning voice, Cas's murmuring one. The front door opening. The front door closing.

And much, much later, the front door opening again.

He doesn't stiffen in the bed. He lies there, hand curled emptily under the pillow, and waits for whatever is coming.

When the weight settles on the edge of the bed, though. It's Cas.

"I called your place of work and told them you were ill."

Dean says nothing.

"I called my own and did the same."

Dean breathes.

"Dean," Cas says, and the mattress whispers as he shifts. "Something frightened you last night."

Dean finally moves, if only to push himself back from the way Cas's weight has inclined the mattress toward him, has made Dean slide toward him.

Cas is quiet for another moment. Then he says, "Dean, I no longer have the ability to sense what you dream." He says it quietly, like it's a failing he'd rather keep hidden. It makes Dean turn toward him, his bristled cheek sliding across his knuckles.

Cas has Emma's stupid alligator in his lap. His hand is gripping it, tightly, and as Dean's eyes fall on it, his grip loosens. He looks down at it, once. Then he slides it across the duvet to Dean.

Dean eyes it. The stupid button eyes. The white felt teeth. His hand curls in the plush.

Cas sighs. He makes to get up.

"While you were gone," Dean says.

Cas stops.

"While you were gone, I was." He's quiet. "I was messed up."

"I'm sorry," Cas says softly.

Dean turns his face back into the pillow. "I had sex with this chick," he says. "Turns out she was an Amazon, and. Well." He gives a short bitter laugh. "I guess you know what that means."

Mr. Chompers' fur is very soft against his fingers. Not pilled yet the way Sam's favorite teddy bear got, before they lost it at that motel in Michigan.

"You had a daughter," Cas says. "Did she come for you?"

Dean laughs again. It's answer enough.

Cas doesn't say anything more. He leaves the silence gaping between them for Dean to fill, an open grave.

"We burned her," he mutters into the pillow. "In this--it couldn't have been more than three feet deep. The grave." His fingers dig into the pillow; he's so enraged with himself he could burn. He could've given her a decent burial. He could've given her that, at least, not left her for flies to burrow into and lay their eggs in. But they burned her and shoveled dirt on top of her while she was still burning and she's still there, somewhere, in a ditch beside I-90. Rotting.

Cas is quiet for a very long time.

"The child," he says finally. "Is Emma…?"

Dean says nothing for a moment. Then he nods into the pillow.

"So if this is really--if this is really some. Some Gabriel thing." He gives a wild laugh. "I think I've learned my lesson."

Cas is quiet again. "She's not real."

Dean says, "She was."

She was.

 

He must fall asleep again after Cas leaves. Because the next thing he knows, he's turning his face against the pillow, eyes creaking open, and something soft and light is tumbling off of him.

He blinks at Mr. Chompers' toothy red mouth a few inches from his face. Then he turns his head to face the door, and meets Emma's hazel eyes, peeking at him from over the edge of the mattress.

Her voice is a whisper. "Mr. Cas said you weren't feeling good."

Dean sits up. More soft things fall off of him, and he realizes they're stuffed animals. He's been buried in an army of Emma's toys.

"So you feel better," Emma whispers, looking at her feet.

He blinks at the alligator still under his arm blearily. Then he reaches for Emma. She crawls up into his lap. They lean back against the headboard, Dean hauling a stuffed gray manatee from under the small of his back, and Emma burrows her head into his neck.

"I told Mr. Cas we need to make you soup," she says. "But I don't think he's very good at cooking, Daddy."

"No," Dean agrees. It feels warm and safe here, with Emma's soft hair under his chin. The warm weight of her holding him down. They're quiet, for a while.

For a while, and then Emma starts to wiggle. "Can we watch more Batman?"

He laughs, almost. Grabs his tablet off the nightstand and exits the work-related windows. Brings up the Netflix app, and they sit there, under the blankets, watching _Batman_ until they both fall asleep.

 

He goes to Sandover the next day. He works until eleven, then catches a taxi to Emma's school. He stops at a Chili's on the way and orders two burgers and an extra serving of fries, to go.

When he goes into the school's front office holding his Chili's To Go bag, the secretary doesn't give him a beady eye. She smiles politely, and takes his driver's license to print him a Visitor's Badge, and it's as different an experience to all the time he went to the front office for Sam as a kid as night is from day.

The secretary walks him to the cafeteria where Emma's class is eating lunch. The teachers sit at a separate long table along the wall, keeping an eye on the kids at their rows of rectangular tables, and she introduces him to Emma's, but Dean's eyes are on the tables, searching up and down the rows until he sees Emma's familiarly sloppy braid.

She looks up as if sensing his gaze. Her eyes go wide.

He gives a sheepish wave. Then holds up the Chili's bag in his other hand.

She nods vigorously. He says something like "thanks" to the secretary and her teacher and heads over to Emma's table to squeeze onto the bench next to her.

"Are you Emma's dad?" demands a ginger kid sitting across from them.

"Mr. Smith!" exclaims a pig-tailed girl on Emma's other side.

"Is it Emma's birthday?" asks one on Dean's other side, and by this time, Dean's laughing. "Can we have some fries?"

The fries get passed around. Dean ends up giving half of his burger and all of his tomato to a freckled kid across from Emma who doesn't have any lunch in front of him and introduces himself shyly as Jack Silver. He can tell from the way Emma keeps sneaking looks at the kid as she brags about how Dean let her stay up until _ten o'clock_ last night to watch Batman that a crush is brewing, and he earns an extra awed look from her when he slips the kid some fries, too.

"Why'd you watch Batman?" complains Ginger Kid. "Superman's better!"

"Whoah, whoah, kid," Dean says. "Hold up, I can't let you say stuff like that about my man Bruce Wayne."

"Yeah!" Emma exclaims as the kids around them go "ooooh." "Can Superman build his own _car_?"

"He doesn't need a car! He can fly!"

The cafeteria doors are opening again. Dean watches them, distracted from the kids' conversation by a shock of familiar dark hair. Cas is ushering a line of absolutely tiny kids inside, one little girl with her hair in beads clinging to his free hand.

Just like Emma did, Cas glances up as though feeling Dean's eyes in him. He squints at him, and Dean winks.

"Mr. Smith! Tell Emma that Flash is better than Green Lantern!"

"Well, now, that depends." Dean tunes back into the conversation, looking away from Cas to eye Ginger Kid. "Are we talking movie Lantern or Justice League Lantern?"

 

When lunch is done and the kids are getting up to form a single-file line to put their trays away, Dean goes up to the teacher table to tell Emma's teacher he's checking her out early. He stops at Cas's table on the way back, where Cas is sitting amid his ankle-biters handing out napkins instead of up at the teacher table. "Heya, Mr. Novak."

"Dean," Cas acknowledges, tilting his head back slightly to look up at Dean. The little girl sitting next to him also looks up to stare at Dean as she gnaws on a chicken nugget, brown eyes huge and solemn. "I didn't know you were coming."

"I decided to spring Emma early," Dean says. "Can I steal the car keys from you? We'll come back and pick you up."

Cas looks past him at Emma. "What are you planning?"

"Just for the afternoon," Dean says instead of answering. "C'mon, Cas."

Cas digs the keys out of his pocket. Dean grins and grabs them, nearly ruffling Cas's hair before he remembers himself. "Thanks, man."

 

Emma's volleyball and knee pads are still in the trunk. Dean drives them to the park he looked up a few days ago and parks in one of the spaces closest to the rest rooms.

"All right," he says, going around to the trunk and pulling out the duffel bag with the sweat pants and t-shirt he packed for himself and the shorts and t-shirt he brought for Emma. "Let's do this."

They stick their uniform clothes in the backseat once they've gotten changed, and it's stupid how warm Dean feels, seeing Emma's plaid jumper folded up next to his dress shirt. Like they match, like they're a family.

They practice serving for the first half of the afternoon. Then setting, and at the end, Dean digs out the Gatorades he brought. Emma laughs uncontrollably when his gives him a red mustache and insists on trading her blue Gatorade to him so she can have a mustache, too.

They make faces in the side mirrors all the way back to the school to pick Cas up in the afternoon, sweaty and happy. Cas is waiting on a bench near the front office, bag neatly on his lap, and he smiles slightly when they pull up in front of him.

"Mr. Cas!" Emma exclaims, and pushes her head out the window to grin at him. "I mustache you a question!"

Cas clearly doesn't get the joke at all. He says, "What is it, Emma?" and Emma and Dean burst into laughter all over again.

 

They go to the park again on Saturday, and Sunday, and Cas comes with them both times. He's surprisingly good at setting, once Dean shows him the manual. When Emma gets tired after a few hours and wanders away to make dandelion crowns in the grass, he and Dean hit the ball back and forth over the net for a while. Dean's a loud player: grunts and shouts "Yes!" or "Dammit!" depending on the hit, but Cas is silent, darting forward and back to hit the ball without comment. Even his damn setting is silent, like his fingertips just kiss the ball to send it into the air again.

They stop at the grocery store on the way home to buy meat for grilling. Emma gets marshmallows, too, and when Dean's done making burgers on the pristine grill in the small backyard, he hauls up a chair for her to stand on beside him and roast the marshmallows on skewers over the coals. Cas lights the ridiculous stained-glass tiki torches at all four corners of the fenced yard, and they eat at the picnic table as dusk falls, turning the sky orange, then purple.

By the time Dean's licked the last marshmallow residue from his fingers, it's dark. Emma's curled up in his lap, having crawled into it and conked out about half an hour ago, and Cas is in the chair next to them, swirling his last fry aimlessly through the pool of barbecue sauce on his plate.

"The ingredients will be here in a few days. I think it would be--"

"Cas," Dean says softly. Each word brushes the side of his chin against Emma's hair. "Not right now. Please?"

For a second, Cas seems about to go on. Then he stops.

They sit there in the summer stillness for a while longer. Listening to the sound of crickets, and the neighbors' sprinklers, and garage doors opening down the street.

Finally Dean creaks to his feet. He carries Emma into the house and up the stairs as the clink of Cas beginning to clear the table fade behind them.

She stirs a little when he sets her down on her bed and begins to tug off her sweaty volleyball shirt so he can put on her pajamas. "Mmm," she complains wordlessly, but suffers her arms to be lifted so he can tug her Tweety bird pajama shirt over her head.

"You awake enough to brush your teeth, Em?"

She shakes her head, already burrowing into her pillow. Then she flips over again, abrupt and sleepy-eyed, and grabs his hand as he tucks her in. "Daddy," she says drowsily.

"What, babe?"

"I like you better when Mr. Cas is here."

He hunkers down next to the bed. "Yeah?"

She nods sleepily, eyes already falling shut again. In seconds, she's breathing deep and easy, and Dean's chest feels tighter and lighter than it has in a long time.

 

He comes up behind Cas where he's standing at the sink washing the ketchup-smeared plates. He lowers his face to the back of Cas's neck, to the knob of bones that presses warm and firm against Dean's forehead.

Cas stills. "Dean?"

Dean says nothing. He lifts his head, and puts his hands to Cas's waist, and Cas turns and he pulls and when his mouth touches Cas's, it tastes like barbecue sauce and marshmallows.

 

"Dean," Cas says against his mouth, a while later. Marshmallow sticky on their lips.

Dean shakes his head. Leans in to kiss him again.

Kisses him until they fall asleep.

 

The ingredients arrive on Wednesday. Dean calls Amelia and asks her to pick Emma up with Claire on Thursday. He knows that this world will collapse when they are gone from it, that it doesn't matter. But he can't bear the thought of Emma waiting alone at after-school care, as the clock inches to five o'clock, to six, for a dad who isn't coming.

He gets out of the car when they get to her school Thursday morning. He drops down next to her and hugs her, backpack and all. Feels her turn apprehensive and worried in his arms.

"Daddy…?"

He presses a kiss to her forehead. She smells like John Frieda's and Reese's Puffs and he's never going to smell that again.

 _She's not real_ , Cas's voice says in his head, and he thinks of the grave on the side of the road.

"Have a good day," he says, pulling back. "Okay?"

Emma's eyes search his.

Then she nods.

 

They draw the sigils silently on the parquet floor of Dean Smith's atrium. Cas cuts his palm for the blood, and Dean lights the match to drop into the metal mixing bowl.

There's a pop and a flash of light. A man is inside the circle, but it's not Gabriel.

"Castiel!" he gasps. He's young, a teenager, blood running down one side of his face. "We've been searching for you!"

Dean and Cas exchange glances. Dean gives the barest shrug.

Cas turns back to the boy, striding toward him. "Who are you?"

"Samandriel," he pants. He's looking past them, around them, an angel blade in his fist. "Come, you must come quickly!"

"Why?" Dean demands.

"The Leviathan are coming!"

Dean exchanges another glance with Cas. "Look, kid, it's okay, we already killed their boss--"

"Exactly!" the angel cries as two more angels pop into existence beside him. "Where do you think he went when you killed him?"

"Hannah," Cas says as Dean says sarcastically, "Uh, Purgatory?"

Hannah looks at Dean in disgust. She's dark-haired and blue-eyed, looks a lot like Cas, right down to the squinty look of disdain. "And where, exactly, do you think you are, Dean Winchester?"

"Wait." Realization seeps into him like dark ooze. " _This_ is Purgatory _?_ "

"Yes," Hannah says, and reaches for Cas. "Come, we must leave--"

Cas grabs Dean's hand. Dean yanks it free.

"No. Cas-- _monsters_ go to Purgatory when they're killed."

"Yes." Cas grabs Dean's arm again. His fingers dig in, tight. "I didn't suspect, before, but--"

Dean pries them loose. Hot spit is pooling in his mouth, like he's about to throw up. "Then she's really..."

" _Dean_!" Cas shouts. Light is beginning to glow behind the angels.

Dean takes one shaky step back. Then a second.

"Dean!" Cas is struggling against the angels' hold now, trying to get to him. "She's not _real_!"

He steps out of the summoning circle.

Cas's eyes widen at him. Then the portal flashes, and he, and the angels, are gone.

 

Dean takes another step back, then another, like he can't stop. His knees are shaking under him. Then his foot lands in the big metal bowl, and it rolls under him. His ankle twists and gives. He hits the floor hard.

For a minute, he stares at the blood-drizzled contents scattered across the carved-up parquet floor. Then he begins to laugh.

Then he begins to cry.

 

"Daddy?" Emma whispers when Jimmy and Amelia bring her home that night. There's something in her face; she sees something in his. Her hand touches his, tentative. Not quite brave enough to hold it. "Are you okay?"

He picks her up. He presses his face into her hair. Inhales the smell of hair detangler and breakfast cereal.

"Yeah, baby girl," he says. "I am."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_It must be fate, I found a place for us_

_I bet you didn't know someone could love you this much._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not even really sorry that I keep writing the same story over and over again. IT IS TOO MUCH FUN TO WRITE.  
> Okay. Maybe a little sorry.
> 
> Title from Big Data's "Dangerous." This fic was a little side-project I started on to procrastinate and because I wanted to see Dean and Cas as volleyball dads. Alas, the volleyball scenes I wanted never made it in. [Insert Unhappy Sturgeon Face.]
> 
> Thanks as always to loversforlycanthropes for reading rough bits of this as I sent them to her and providing feedback.  
> Songs and lyrics belong to Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Big Data, featuring Joywave ("Dangerous").


End file.
